"A Bull Market . . ."

It was almost like old times. The stock tickers chattered merrily, brokerage-house telephones jangled, customers' men had customers to talk to, order clerks scampered about. At week's end fast-moving Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe was up 7 1/2-points to a five-year high, Atlantic Coast Line 4, U.S. Steel 2 1/4, Du Pont 3 1/4, American Airlines 3 1/8, Douglas Aircraft 3 1/8 and Allied Chemical 4.

All told it was the most profitable week Wall Street has had this year. Six-day trading volume zoomed to 3,000,000 shares, highest since January (and about equal to an average day in 1929); the Dow-Jones industrial averages rose 2 points to a nine-month high; some railroad stocks spurted 10 to 25% to hit new wartime highs. Only laggards: the scared-to-death utility stocks, squeezed between mounting fuel & labor costs and impossible-to-raise rates.

For this burst of buying brokers had three pat reasons: 1) inflation, 2) better war news, 3) stocks are undervalued on the basis of earnings and dividends. Besides, corporation tax rates have reached the practical ceiling (i.e., about 80% overall) and there cannot be much more bad news about taxes on business profits.

So a wave of optimism rolled through Wall Street. Said the usually conservative Standard & Poor's Corp.: "the next major stockmarket move will be upwards . . . you should buy now." Soothsaid the Wall Street Journal: "April and June of this year were the lows of the bear market which started three years ago. ... A bull market is now under way."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.